"Overclocked state, I can only hold it for about fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes the dizziness and nausea hit and I want to vomit. My mental strength isn't high enough. I'll have to raise it too."
After summing up, Lister told Michelin to prepare a large amount of meat and desserts, then began a new round of tests.
"Overclock Mode."
He named the state Overclock Mode.
Buzz.
His thoughts surged into high gear again. Lister began integrating and refining what he knew, then pushed further on hyper-digestion. This ability mattered. Since it had been discovered by accident, he wanted to shape it into something like Rokuko Senzoku, an art that devours all things to make up for the life force burned by hyper-regeneration and hyper-thought.
[Heaven's way takes from the surplus and gives to the lacking; man's way takes from the lacking to serve the surplus…]
[After fusing knowledge from two worlds, your understanding of the six viscera and their digestive functions deepens.]
[Hyper-digestion comprehensively optimized.]
[Hyper-digestion further reinforced.]
[The six viscera are linked into one and folded into the hyper-digestion system.]
[Minor damage appears in the six viscera.]
[Hyper-regeneration used to heal the viscera.]
[Six-viscera hyper-integration complete.]
[You grasp Second Gear Hyper-Digestion and name it Rokuko Senzoku.]
Blood spurted from Lister's seven orifices the instant he pushed hyper-digestion to a second tier. His limbs ached. Dizziness and hunger crashed over him.
"Bring me meat!"
Shaking, he shouted. In under a minute the twelve girls, long on standby, filed in with trays of meat and desserts. Lister forgot all pretense and wolfed it down, packing half the food into his stomach in a few bites.
"More," he told the girls whose platters were empty, then set on the remaining half.
After seven or eight runs like that, he finally stopped. He dismissed the attendants and quietly felt his body. Mind and flesh alike had returned to a peak state. On top of that came a comfort he had never known.
"Rokuko Senzoku is only in its first draft, but digestion speed is three times what it was, and it now refines an essence from what I eat. That essence flows through my body and patches damage everywhere, even restoring life force I've burned before. At this level it's enough for now. To develop a third tier and perfect Rokuko Senzoku, I probably need to awaken Observation Haki."
"Since that's the case, next I'll focus on hitting power."
Time slipped by. Another week passed. During this stretch Lister drew on the insights from his past world and the training notes of masters in this one to design new attack techniques, then drilled them in practice. It wasn't enough for his brain to know; his body had to know too.
One morning, while he and Nami were eating breakfast, the logistics manager Schindler came in. "Captain, our food stores are running low."
"I remember several holds were packed with grain, and the Black Gold had eight-tenths of its holds full. By my count that should feed a hundred people for a month and a half. How are we short already?" Lister frowned at Schindler.
Schindler looked aggrieved and hesitated. With anyone else he would have blurted it out, but this was Captain Lister of the Money Pirates.
"Spit it out," Lister said coldly when he saw his face.
"Captain, we were well stocked. The shortage is because you've been eating too much lately. Five or six meals a day, and over a thousand jin per meal."
"Enough, I get it," Lister said, face going stiff. He finally understood. These days he'd been eating with no restraint to develop new skills and techniques, burning through more in a day than Nami did in a year. Since it was his fault, he couldn't blame anyone else.
"How much is left. How many days at my current pace?"
"If you keep eating like before, at most three days," Schindler answered at once.
"Three days is too short. On the open sea it isn't easy to meet another ship, and three days may not be enough to make land. If I cut back, say one to two hundred jin a day, how long can we last?"
"At that rate we could hold for six or seven days."
"Fine. Starting today I tighten my belt," Lister said.
Nami's mouth twitched at the side. She had never heard anyone call eating one to two hundred jin a day "tightening the belt."
"All right, that's all. You can go. Next time tell me sooner," Lister said.
"Aye," Schindler replied and withdrew.